There goes top spot then. Didn't take long for that seven point lead to go up in smoke. It's not easy though when we're having to play in other team's cup finals. If only Everton had put up this kind of fight when they played City.
Maybe United will match last week's effort when they face their 'noisy neighbours', but don't bank on it. I can guarantee that the Chelsea that shows up at Anfield will be unrecognisable from the disgraceful rabble that bent over at the Etihad. The price of being hated I guess.
City have won eight of their last nine and we’re drawing more than Tony Hart. That’s a big problem and although nothing is over yet and there are a lot of points still to play for, it’s difficult to shake the feeling that we now need to win every game to even stand a chance. It still might not be enough, but we’ve got no control over what City do so there’s no point being overly concerned about that right now.
What we should be concerned about are our own performances. Let’s be honest here, there is absolutely nothing whatsoever to suggest that we can win all of our remaining games. Nothing. We’re not losing, mainly because the defence is fucking boss, but we aren’t winning enough either because the attack is so fucking streaky. Bottom line - I don’t trust the forwards to deliver anymore. They’ve misfired too many times this season, whereas the defence have had less than a handful of poor games.
We’ve kept five clean sheets in a row in all competitions but we’ve only won one of those games. Over the course of the entire season we’ve had eight draws and in five of those we kept a clean sheet. In the others, we conceded only one in each game. If the attack had found the net just once in each of those games we’d have eight more points and would have a lead to take to Munich. The forwards are fucking killing us, and who could have seen that coming?
We didn’t play well against Everton but we still should have won fairly comfortably. You can argue that we didn’t deserve to win based on how we played and you’ll get no real argument from me on that, but deserved or not, we should have won because we had all of the chances.
It was a massively frustrating game because everything was there for us to win it. Everton were made up with the draw but in fairness they didn’t play for it. This wasn’t like last week when United just got everyone behind the ball and tried to stop us. The Blues didn’t do that, they might be shite but they had a go and tried to win the game, and because of that there was space for us to exploit. We did exploit it to some degree and we created some great chances. We just wasted them.
We didn’t control the game as we should have done but I’d give Everton a lot of credit for that as they made it difficult and maintained a really high work rate. They didn’t play much football and Pickford was back to doing what he did under Allardyce and spent most of the game kicking for touch. I had hoped we’d see them repeat the hilarious “Man City-lite” style we saw at Anfield, but sadly not.
Their work rate was impressive, no doubt fuelled by the hissing, venomous “support” from the home crowd. They’ve barely make a sound at Goodison all season and most of them hate their own team these days, but they hate us more. The chance to stop the Reds going back to the top of the league meant they turned in the performance of their lives. Both on the pitch and in the stands.
Everton’s players absolutely ran themselves ragged against us. You won’t see that from them again this season. Job done now. I didn’t think they’d be able to keep up the pace they set early in the game and assumed they’d tire, opening it up for us late on. That never really happened though. If anything we looked more leggy than they did, which is a worry.
Time on the ball was at a premium but it wasn’t the blood and thunder derby games of old. We should have played better than we did but it wasn’t all bad either. We’ve played a lot worse than this on numerous occasions this season. At least we had chances in this game. If we’d taken one or two that would have put an entirely different slant on how we played.
I don’t think it’s being unfair to say that Mo Salah is the reason we picked up one point instead of three. I don’t particularly like singling out one player like that, but it’s true. Talk about the midfield’s lack of goals and penetration all you like, but it’s not their fault that Salah missed two one on ones with the keeper.
This season he has actually been the player we thought he was at the very beginning of last year, before he morphed into a global superstar who couldn’t miss. Remember all the “he’d be great if he could finish” shouts back in the first month or two he was here? With last year’s Mo (and Bobby) we’d be ten points clear now. Damn, I miss last year’s Mo.
Klopp was asked afterwards why Salah didn’t take his chances. He laughed and to be fair it was a pretty ridiculous question. I mean what’s he supposed to say? “Mo didn’t score because he won’t use his fucking right foot and his obsession with using his left makes him easier to stop”. He’d be right, but he’s never going to say that and nor should he. Not publicly anyway.
We had other chances as well as those squandered by Salah, but the wastefulness of our leading goalscorer was the real issue. Matip’s 50p head missed the target as usual, while Fabinho should have scored too but an elephant like touch took the chance away from him. He’s a defensive midfield player not known for scoring goals though, his talents lie elsewhere.
With Mo, it’s his job to score and to win games for us and he didn’t do it. Getting goal number 50 is becoming a massive fucking problem for him now as since he got within touching distance of it the goals have just dried up.
It wasn’t just his finishing that hurt us in this game though. There was an easy cross to Milner in acres of space that he missed by about ten yards and instead curled it straight into the tiny arms of Pickford. That might have been the worst moment of the entire match. It was unspeakably shit and had me screaming in frustration. It summed up his day though.
I don’t get what’s happening with him. I know he was pitiful last weekend, but when you see how electric he was against Watford it’s hard to believe he could go out and shit the bed again like this. He’s been wildly inconsistent this year and I no longer have any idea which Salah we’re going to see anymore. Bobby was garbage when he came on too, and I’m struggling to remember anything of note that Mané did.
Origi seems to be taking more flak than anyone based on what I've seen, but I don't get that at all. He's an easy target and I'm not trying to tell you he played well because he didn't. He was certainly no worse than anyone else though. I felt that his biggest problem was that we didn’t get the ball to him often enough.
He skinned Coleman a couple of times to get crosses in and he knew he had the beating of him, but we kept going through the middle, as usual, and didn’t take advantage of that mismatch we had. He was predictably subbed so that we could get the usual front three back in the saddle, but can anyone really say we looked better for it?
Personally I’d have left Origi out there for a little while longer and brought Firmino on for the invisible Wijnaldum. Starting with three mostly defensive workhorses against Everton makes no sense to me. The balance was all wrong. Everton don’t deserve that kind of respect as they’re not very good. Henderson or Fabinho. Not both. But if it’s both then the third has to be Keita, not Wijnaldum or Milner.
So yeah, I didn’t like swapping in Milner (who Klopp said has been dealing with a hamstring problem) for Gini in a like for like move while also subbing Divock for Bobby. Give it ten minutes with the four of them up top and if it doesn’t work then go for Shaq or Keita for Origi. Instead we just got more of the same and the game continued on as it was, end to end with neither side in control or ever really looking like scoring.
The hardest part to take is that if Mo puts one of those chances away we definitely win because Everton would not have scored past Alisson & co if they had played until midnight. They had a couple of half chances but nothing clear cut and Van Dijk was absolutely imperious. What a player he is.
Matip was good too, but everyone else ranged from average (Robbo, Trent, Hendo) to varying degrees of shite (everyone else bar Alisson who was fine).
We really need to talk about those substitutions though. I don’t get it at all. Just as Keita looked like he was coming into form he’s completely overlooked for the next few games. At this point, what a fucking terrible signing and a massive letdown he’s been. He may well be great next season but we needed him to be the business straight away and he’s contributed virtually nothing.
I wasn’t alone in expecting him to tear this league up, but here we are in March and he can’t get on the field in a game we really needed to win. He was supposed to be the player to transform our midfield and give us that thrust and penetration we lack when Ox isn’t there. Instead he’s sat there watching as a half fit Milner and a washed up Lallana are sent on instead.
And how shit must Shaqiri have been in training lately if we’re being subjected to Lallana being brought on ahead of him? Utter madness that substitution. Instead of having the fourth official raise the electric board with the numbers on Klopp should have just waved a big white flag, because that’s what it felt like. It was almost as bad as the decision to send Sturridge on at Old Trafford last week.
The use of substitutions and inability to change games that aren’t going well remains Klopp’s biggest (maybe even only) weakness. Don't get me wrong, I love him and we’d be absolutely fucked without him, but he’s just not good at this particular aspect of the game. Part of it is that he doesn’t have the same kind of bench options as Guardiola (or even Solskjaer) has, but it’s not just that, is it? Sturridge last week, Lallana this week, seriously Jurgen, what the actual fuck?
So what now, where does this leave us? Right up against it I’d say. Yes, there’s a long way to go and the players are making all the right noises about fighting until the end. Of course it’s possible that City could drop points but it’s all looking a bit ominous now. The more defiant among us will say that we’re only one point behind and there’s nine games left, so there’s hardly cause for panic. I agree, and yet it feels as though we’re one more disappointing result away from it being over.
If that gap were to get to four, can anyone see us clawing that back? I felt as though the best chance we had was to just keep our noses in front and make City do the chasing. Instead we’ve dropped eight points in our last six games and it’s cost us top spot. It’s hard to stomach but we just have to keep going and hope for the best.
It’s difficult to remain upbeat and I don’t blame anyone who has already given up. It’s not like fans are throwing the towel in at the first sign of adversity, we’ve been getting punched in the face repeatedly over the last decade or so. There’s only so many times you can get knocked down before you decide to just stay down and avoid further punishment.
I’m still getting up, but the ref’s count is getting higher with each knockdown. He got to nine this time.
Star man is Van Dijk, by absolute fucking miles. The same margin, co-incidentally, by which he should be named Player of the Year. Just a shame that last year’s Player of the Year isn’t producing the same kind of form.
Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Matip, Van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho, Henderson, Wijnaldum (Milner); Salah, Mané (Lallana), Origi (Firmino):
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